1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a terminal-formed electric wire.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is conventionally known a technique relating to a so-called terminal-formed electric wire in which, instead a terminal metal fitting installed in an electric wire, a part of a core wire of the electric wire is formed in a desired terminal shape. In this technique, for example, the core wire is exposed by stripping off a covering of the electric wire, and a terminal-forming target portion of this exposed portion is interposed between a pair of electrodes. In addition, the pair of electrodes are electrically conducted while pressing the terminal-forming target portion with the pair of electrodes. As a result, the core wire of the terminal-forming target portion is melted under pressing and heating. Then, in this technique, the electric conduction to the pair of electrodes is stopped, and the core wire is cooled while maintaining the pressed state, so that solidification of the melted core wire is waited. Here, the pair of electrodes are formed in a shape corresponding to a desired terminal shape. As a result, the terminal-forming target portion is formed in a desired terminal shape. The terminal-formed electric wire in this type is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 04-249875.
However, in order to execute terminal forming of the core wire, it is necessary to heat the core wire up to a temperature higher than a melting point of the core wire. For this reason, depending on the melting point, the core wire may not be perfectly melted, and therefore there is a possibility that it is difficult to form the desired terminal shape.